


Bright Lament

by musiclily88



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, banshee - Freeform, banshee harry, bansheee lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 06:37:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21157250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musiclily88/pseuds/musiclily88
Summary: Deep / as I have been done





	Bright Lament

Harry is made of dirt and bones.

He sleeps in the woods sometimes, and sometimes he likes to dip his body into the hollow of a tree at night, because he’s only human.

Right? That sounds right, somehow, seems to harken back to something familiar.

But maybe he’s not human, is the thing. Maybe he’s something else.

He was never sure if that was possible, but he has a hard time remembering things now. There’s a mist and a haze, some kind of fog, and his throat always feels raw from the screaming.

His eyes are always bright from the fires he starts.

:

Harry wasn’t always a banshee, probably, but who’s to say, really, at the end of days. Not Harry, that’s for sure.

There are things one can duck away from or shoulder away, a near miss of a poison dart or a witch’s spell, and, well, Harry wasn’t so lucky, apparently. He wasn’t lucky enough to catch death. Instead, Harry caught the wailing.

He caught the _ keening. _

He caught it all.

:

_ Dirt and bones, _ he reminds himself, turning onto his side, sunlight breaking through the leaves above him. _ All we are is dirt and bones. _

His hair is matted around his face, and his lips are dry.

_ All we are is dirt and bones. _

:

Sometimes the banshee is a sweet singing siren of sorts, known for the luring.

But the keening always comes, and so does the doom.

Because that’s what he’s there for, really. He’s there for the death-scream.

He rolls onto his side, covering his closed eyes with an arm, because it’s all just too much. Everything is too much.

Sometimes, he howls into the wind.

:

At one point, he wakes up at the side of a small brook without a clue as to how he’s gotten there. Clutched in his arms is a bloody nightgown.

He retches into the stream of water, stomach heaving over and over.

Later, he cleans the gore off the fabric, moving the gown onto a low-hanging branch to dry. He leaves it there, his ears ringing uncontrollably.

:

Harry hates autumn for the same reasons he loves it. The darkness means something to him.

He can’t sleep until he sleeps too much, he can’t live until he lives too much. He can’t die until he dies too much. And then comes the fire.

That’s when he wakes up screaming, knuckles bloody and close to being scabbed over, but not quite. He wonders what he’s gotten up to in the night, wonders how he’s lost control of his body. He wonders who he’s cursed. It could be anyone.

It could be everyone.

:

It’s mostly the screaming that gets to him. Not just his own, but the screaming of everyone else, too. It gets in his head and it sinks in solid, it lodges its way just behind his eyes.

That’s the way screams work.

They work like quick-fire, white-hot and seething. They hurt, just like his throat.

It all hurts so much, and he’s just so tired.

His throat always feels so raw.

:

Sometimes, he can’t set out the fires, because sometimes he isn’t strong enough. He tries, because he wasn’t born for this, technically he was _ made, _ but then, he supposes, isn’t everyone made for something.

He doesn’t like that excuse, not when he sees terror in someone’s eyes, not when the trees catch fire.

:

Sometimes he likes to lie on the ground and look up, particularly as the sun is rising. He thinks it might be like benediction, if that’s possible for someone—something—like him. Perhaps it is and perhaps it isn’t, but at early morning time, at the quiet time, anything seems possible.

Sometimes, the sky is lovely.

Sometimes, it makes him scream.

:

He eventually wades into a stream—not sure of the name of it, not even sure what part of the country or county he’s in—and he ducks his head down until he doesn’t come up again.

Somehow, the water burns.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: musiclily


End file.
